2023 was one of the deadliest years on Mount Everest. Sherpas say the tragedies could have been avoided if 'impatient' foreign climbers were more careful.
Feng Wei Photography / Getty Images
- Seventeen climbers died or went missing and are presumed dead on Mount Everest this year.
- It was one of the deadliest climbing seasons on the world's tallest peak.
- Sherpas and organizers told Al Jazeera extreme weather and "carelessness" have caused the tragedies.
This year's climbing season on Mount Everest was one of the deadliest on record.
A dozen climbers died in 2023, and five people remain missing. With 17 people lost, killed, or presumed dead on the world's highest peak, 2023 is the second-deadliest climbing season on record, just behind 2018, when 18 climbers died in an earthquake.
Expedition organizers and officials cited two reasons for the tragic year: extreme cold weather fueled by climate change and "carelessness" on the part of foreign hikers trying to reach the famous mountaintop.
Yuba Raj Khatiwada, the director of Nepal's tourism department, said the "changing in the weather" was behind the deaths.
"This season the weather conditions were not favorable, it was very variable," Khatiwada said, according to The Guardian. "Climate change is having a big impact in the mountains."
Temperatures normally drop to -18 degrees Fahrenheit on the 29,032-foot-high mountain, but this year they plunged to -40 degrees Fahrenheit, Al Jazeera reported.
Mingma Gyalje Sherpa, whose team opened the route to the summit this year, told Al Jazeera the extreme cold and "carelessness" about safety led to the deaths.
Even experienced guides were hit with frostbite, meaning camps on the mountain weren't fully stocked, sherpas told Al Jazeera.
And this year, Nepal issued a record number of permits for climbers to attempt to summit Everest.
The sherpas said that unprepared foreign climbers were too eager to climb the mountain and set out for the peak without fully supplied camps.
"Clients were impatient and climbing began," Mingma Gyalje Sherpa told Al Jazeera. "I think some of the casualties could have been prevented if all the supplies were there."